Sometimes, people say there is isn’t political stand-up comedy these days, not like there used to be. I disagree with this; there’s a wide range of comedians out there in the 2020s, building on the political comedy tradition from different angles. Sometimes finding it can require a bit of digging, so I’ve put together an easy way to start: specials that are free on YouTube, no digging required.
Here are five political comedy shows that I love, one from each of the most recent five years:
Milo Edwards (England) – Voicemail (2022)
This show is full of sharp edges. So sharp that its follow-up, Sentimental (also on YouTube, also a very good show with lots of political material), had the premise of responding to reviewers who claimed that Voicemail was insufficiently emotional, given its subject matter.
Voicemail a dead dad show with a twist. The twist is that there is a tragedy reveal at the 45-minute mark, and the reveal is not the fact that is dad is dead, because that one came far earlier. This show has enough tragedy for multiple reveals, and very little sentimentality about any of them. Milo Edwards is very good at discussing dark subjects without sentimentality, but also without trying to shock you by being cavalier. His matter-of-fact attitude comes off as more honest than performatively edgy.
While Voicemail covers multiple personal tragedies, it’s essentially a political show, and the personal gets tied into that. It discusses the role of class in everyday life, the promises of theoretical capitalist meritocracy that haven’t been kept, impending climate collapse, and historical context for our modern disasters.
Edwards’ sharp edges have a purpose beyond just offending people. He has a routine about economic collapse through the allegory of pornography, and an incredibly nihilistic take on the pitfalls in mental healthcare. Even the bits that seem rather pedestrian, like observations about dads who leave voicemails, become much harsher in light of the rest of the show.
Voicemail is a show about cutting through society’s polite lies, and acknowledging the realities of how all humans are inherently running out of time. But the overall cynicism makes the tiny moments of poignancy – of sentiment, if you will – even more significant.
Laura Davis (Australia – also NZ and England and Scotland, at times) – If This Is It (2023)
Laura Davis has always been a comedian of big ideas, and If This Is It feels like the first (but not last) show in which they fully threw off any shackles of being apologetic for that, and really went for it. Its central themes are the ruthless opportunism in capitalism and consumerism, and the importance of arts and education for preserving the collective soul of humanity. Even that understates the show’s thesis, as it hits so many different concepts, and ties them all together.
Davis is also a comedian of crescendos, of poetic language that rises and falls throughout the hour and builds to something awesome in the finale. If This Is It nails that format. It’ll leave you with goosebumps and a sense of wonder, with vertigo from the scale of what’s been explored. I try to avoid the cliché of comparing any comedian with thematic ambition to Daniel Kitson, but sometimes it cannot be avoided, and here, the word “Kitson-esque” applies.
In If This Is It, Davis mocks the idea of their comedy being transcendent, something only for smart people to congratulate themselves for liking. They go highbrow while mocking the concept of highbrow art, they go on cathartic rants while mocking the idea of comedy as catharsis. One routine involves doing the most lowbrow form of comedy in the most highbrow way possible, and that definitely makes some point about the nature of art. And it’s very funny.
Laura Davis is so very good imagery, and If This Is It showcases that spectacularly. With the worldbuilding skills of a fantasy novelist, they conjure wild forests and depths of oceans and pits of despair.
This show is self-aware, it’s feminist, it’s anti-capitalist, it’s pro-revolution, it’s environmentalist, it’s furious, it’s soaked in existential panic. The whole thing moves at an intense pace; it’s one of those rare stand-up hours in which no part drags. Every time it starts to take itself too seriously, it breaks things up with a self-referential joke. It’s beautifully crafted.
Tom Ballard (Australia) – The Referendum Special (2024)
This show makes the political personal – it discusses a personal connection to not just the political issue, but to the politics around it. The issue in question is the 2023 referendum on whether to alter the Australian constitution to recognise a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, which could make representations to the government. Tom Ballard campaigned for the motion, but Australia voted against it. The Referendum Special discusses the fallout from this in Ballard’s own life, with his Aboriginal boyfriend and in-laws.
It’s a tough line to walk, for a white man like Ballard to write a show about how upsetting anti-Indigenous racism is for him, without it coming across white savour-y. He acknowledges several times, across the show, that he is not the victim here, and in fact, is part of the privileged class that further solidified its privilege in that vote. But he can still speak about his own experiences, and the way he feels toward his affected loved ones.
Ballard discusses how painful it is to realize the society where you live doesn’t share your deeply held values; this will be relatable and validating to many left-wing people who have been in that position. He talks about the anger, the alienation, the shock and sense of betrayal. He talks about volunteering for the Yes campaign, meeting people on the other side of the issue, and struggling to connect with them. He talks about the uselessness of white guilt and not knowing what to say to his boyfriend about it.
The Referendum Special is adapted from Ballard’s 2024 stand-up hour, Good Point Well Made, and consolidates material about the referendum. It cuts this with footage from news reports about the vote, which adds an immediacy and life to the points he makes.
This special also contains the routine that formed the basis of his 2026 stand-up hour, which was a response to some claims that that routine was cancel-worthy. Try watching The Referendum Special and guessing which routine it is – then go see his 2026 show, Be Funny Challenge: Impossible, to find out whether you were right.
Nish Kumar (England) – Nish Don’t Kill My Vibe (2025)
Nish Kumar workshopped this show across a couple of years; I saw many WIP versions of it, and was always amazed at the effort he expended in squeezing everything he had to say into an hour. He’d talk at a million words a minute, he’d come out already shouting and run right up against the scheduled end time, he’d hardly take a breath until that point. And he’d still have to rotate his routines, leaving out different ones each time.
I was interested to see which setlist would make the filmed cut, and was very pleased when he released the extended tour version. Nish Kumar spent years consistently outdoing his own great work, and by 2025, he’d created a masterpiece that could not be constrained by the hour-based format. It could barely be constrained by Kumar’s own lungs, based on how exhausting it looks to perform. This special is nearly 100 minutes long, and none of it is padding; he still needs to shout at a million words a minute to get it all in.
This show covers a multitude of political topics, the running theme being anger at the terrible things people get away with, the psychological toll of being affected by these issues and caring about them all. Kumar dissects the problems, and the coping mechanisms for the problems, and the reasons why it matters, and what you’re supposed to do with all the burning anger.
As usual, Kumar’s relentless intensity can make it easy to miss the depth in his analysis, the way he brings together threads of history and psychology to contextualize his topics. He knows what he’s talking about, and he has honed this show so much that the blind rage is molded into coherent points. And it’s very funny. I’ve heard this material so many times, and it can still make me lose my breath with laughter.
Nato Green (USA) – The Darkest Hour (2026)
Some people say political comedy has no value unless the comedian is out there solving the problems they complain about. I don’t subscribe to this view, because regardless of real-world action, there is value in providing temporary catharsis to frustrated people. There is also value in just making people laugh, which is enough of a goal for other forms of comedy, and political comedy shouldn’t be an exception. People complaining about stuff they’re not solving it is a cornerstone in every part of life, including stand-up comedy.
However, when a political comedian also goes out and makes the world a materially better place, that’s an exciting bonus. Nato Green is an American comedian with a day job as a union negotiator; he organizes strikes and protests for labour rights, as well as for other causes. This special has some light observational jokes about the atmosphere at a Jews For Palestine anti-genocide rally.
The Darkest Hour is Nato Green’s third hour-long stand-up recording and first filmed special, the other two being audio on Bandcamp. The Darkest Hour is far more structured than his previous releases, bringing many routines back to an overall conceit about sub-dividing the left- and right-wings of politics, and why each sub-division responds to issues the way they do. It’s a frank and cynical perspective without taking the “both sides are as bad as each other” angle; he’s very clear that some sides are better than others. This show is explicitly political and explicitly leftist. It preaches to the choir in a way that’s unapologetic, because sometimes the choir is tired and would like a sermon.
The Darkest Hour focuses heavily on American politics, but you don’t need to know a lot of minutiae to understand it. Most specific political references are to things that many people outside America will know if they follow international news, like presidential candidates and major federal issues. Even if a few details go over some international viewers’ heads, most issues discussed apply in other countries as well, and the analysis will translate.
Green delivers this show like a lecturer giving a tutorial about politics, but the show doesn’t feel patronizing; on the contrary, it assumes a fair amount of knowledge on the audience’s part. Green brags that his crowd is so intellectual that his heckles are more like “peer review”.
The tone is dry, but you can see the passion underneath, from the comedian and from his audience, when Green addresses all-important questions such as, “Do you plan to start some shit?” There are some small, touching moments, especially around the end, that stand in contrast to the cynicism, and generate something like hope.
Bonus: Josie Long (England) – Romance & Adventure (2012)
This was meant to be a list of five shows from the 2020s, but I cannot make a post about this generation of political stand-up without mentioning its gold standard, Josie Long. She has made many brilliant stand-up hours, has recently finished touring her latest show and started working on a new one, so she is an example of a political comedian of 2026. But her only stand-up special on YouTube is from 2012, and it’s always worth revisiting.
Romance & Adventure is not Josie Long’s first political show, but it’s the first one she made after fully embracing the role of a political comedian. She’s fully in that role, but new to it, figuring it out, exploring it alongside the audience.
This show has her classic “Miliband, Milismash, Miliburn” routine, and if you don’t understand that reference, it’s worth watching the special just to find out what it is. It also has material about moving around East London after a breakup, turning 30 and trying to complete pre-30s bucket lists, living next to French lesbians and their dog, climbing a mountain in Kenya, driving around the country in a van to perform gigs in parking lots with Grace Petrie and Tom Parry, wanting to move to Glasgow (that worked out well for her, in years that followed), and trying to remain optimistic that the Tory stranglehold on Britain circa-2012 will end soon (that worked out considerably less well).
Robin Ince has recently written a poem about an Alexei Sayle quote: “Champagne socialism is champagne for everyone.” Re-watching Romance & Adventure made me think of that quote, as one of its essential themes is Josie Long trying to reconcile her love of nice things with her left-wing values. She also tries to reconcile her anger at Tories with her belief in kindness, and her cynicism with her belief in the importance of hope. It’s a show about reckoning, about contradiction, about passion.
So if anyone is looking for recent political comedy, those five specials are a good place to start. Here is a tiny sample of some other excellent political comedians who are working today: Ahir Shah, Andy Zaltzman, Andrew O’Neill, Alice Fraser, Grace Petrie (she is also a political folk singer, and would like to remind people that those also still exist), Guy Williams, Hari Kondabolu, Kiri Pritchard-McLean, Robin Ince.